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Teenage Engineering OP-1 and Oplab

Teenage Engineering is always fun. That goes for both playing the instruments and visiting their both at NAMM. We remember the OP-1 from the previous show:

Teenage Engineering introduced Oplab this time around. It’s a DIY system with a small versatile connectivity hub and variety of available sensors, including this shoe:

The heart of the system is the Oplab device itself, with CV inputs and outputs (in a format that connects easily to Eurorack format modules, the OP-1 and other devices), MIDI and USB. The USB can used to connect to an iPad to control synth apps or receive control data. Similarly, the analog CV and custom digital connections serve both directions. In addition to the shoe, they have several available sensors, including pressure, tap and rotation, though they strongly encourage users to bring their own.

The little eviscerated hard-drive on the right is an example of the DIY spirit of the system. It turns out one can spin the disk inside a hard drive and generate useful pulses for temporal control. I had never thought of using a hard drive as a controller before.

The Oplab and its related devices should be available later this spring. I’m definitely intrigued.

2 thoughts on “Teenage Engineering OP-1 and Oplab”

It is also interesting to note that Surachai, who co-hosted the Trash Audio party and is a regular contributor in the synth community, had been at the same OP-1 as I was just shortly before. That’s his card next to it.